REEF2REEF Saltwater and Reef Aquarium Forum

I added an acro. I know! First new acro in a year, 25% Bayer dip for 15 minutes, 5 rinses, scraped with a scalpel and superglued part of the base I didn't like. edit: This is not 100% safe, only QT is really safe. Regardless of how much work I did pests can still come in through the dip or on the frag plug.

It's a Cali tort, I had one a long time back and have wanted another for a while. The slimer helped pay for this one. Another funky stag.

I'm also giving brownie another chance. This is a maricultured piece that I had trouble keeping alive. Saved two small frags, both settled in and grew rapidly but never colored up. I put the largest piece in the sump under a cheap LED and let it sulk down there for a year. I cut a frag of it and brought it back up. Can I color it up this time? I doubt it. lol

The larger frag of my beloved Lokani

#Katropora frags #2 and #3 under 100 to 125 PAR and while straggly still looking really good.

If one is to have shrooms, these should be it. Finally reproducing.

So when my calcium started to get too low this Acan (micromussa) suffered the most, losing all but half a head. I didn't do anything because, well, it's not an SPS. I suspect now this is a good one to watch for water quality issues as it started to die before my yellow and red acro showed any stress.

I had a pretty serious calcium issue over the last months. The calcium doser was falling behind, not dosing as much, and I haphazardly thought I had made up for it. Calcium hit a low of 270 by the time my lazy *** got around to testing. This is the reason I lost the red and yellow acro and I almost lost a few others. It took an entire gallon of calcium from the BRS two part mixture, in addition to regular dosing, to raise calcium back up. After a couple of weeks with decent params growth exploded. Every acro has a cluster of new growth at the tips, even my blue stag, which has never returned to blue since the alk spike over a year ago, experienced some new growth.

Other than two part I am still dosing 1 drop of PhosphateRx daily plus MicroE and new is 5 drops daily of Pohls Extra special because I had some to use up.

Green Slimer, a maricultured valida, and an acro some of us call #Katropora are the hardiest that keep good color for me. The ORA Miami Orchid is very rugged as well, but a little more sensitive than the slimer, for me. Next up is a green polyp purple valida of some sort followed by a blue stag that has yet to regain a good blue for over a year now but still grows.

yea, I'm overdue here for some pics I took a few days ago. Still using NOPOX, trying to balance it with PhosphateRx. I had some LPS issues after a few weeks using both so at the moment I'm only using NOPOX. I had managed to knock the Xenia back a bit, they looked stressed, and the acros looked great, but the change was a bit much for an Acan and my big Frogspawn. It's funny how sometimes the acros, when healthy, can tolerate more than some easier corals can.

Switched from all T5 + BML LED strips to a T5 NanoBox 8 puck hybrid along with the BML strips.
Added a Seachem Matrix to a Phosban 550 reactor to reduce Nitrates
Started daily dosing of PhosphateRx (diluted Lanthanum Chloride)
Started daily dosing of trace elements

I'm not sure anything above does any good except PhosphateRx, which allows me to keep steady PO4 which I've found is more important than it being too high. PO4 swings can do a number on acros. I do the drops of MicroE because I rarely do any water changes on this tank and I want to make sure I maintain these elements but don;t overdose. 2 drops is 1/4 of the recommended dose.

I call this one Cousin It because it's so darn hairy. It is gaining a nice bright pink.

This is my other pinkish milli, a random frag like Cousin It, and not sure what color it will end up with. Tips are bluish, some pink in the mid sections, with purple green in a few spots.

Here's the pinkish acro with the horrible mustard polyps.

Lokani. Not sure if I mentioned it above but during my 6 months of semi crashing and losing acros this lost color but continued to slowly grow. Rugged and good looking.

Random frag, SSC?

Hairy Horrida

This is another random frag and is a bother. Looks good at the moment but colors will fade for seemingly no reason, then color back up. It may be related to nitrates since I recently added enough CaNO3 to reach 2 prior to a short vacation.

Hawkins

This is the last coral to not regain full color since the issues started almost a year ago. Finally it's showing signs of blue returning.